Sail-World New Zealand- November 26, 2012

Welcome to Sail-World.com's New Zealand newsletter for November 26, 2012

The International Jury for the America's Cu has declined an appeal from Artemis Racing requesting it to reconsider an earlier decision in regard to the measurement of the displacement of the AC72 catamaran hulls.

This is in response to the International Jury's decision of October 7, the effect of which was to declare legal the use of larger volume daggerboards by Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa.

That decision, many believe, has led directly to the excellent foiling performance of the two Auckland based AC72's. But others are not of the view that foiling, in the America's Cup itself, will be quite so vital. But more of that at a later time in Sail-World.com.

We have an analysis of the decision in this newsletter.

TeamVodafoneSailing crossing the start line off Royal Akarana YC around 1000hrs on Friday at the start of the White Island Race

Staying with multihulls, Simon Hull's ORMA 60 trimaran scorched around the White Island Race course over the weekend, setting a new record in the process - by a margin of 3 minutes - testimony to the light winds that plagued the entire fleet. Hull and his merry crew could spare a thought after their 27 hour sprint for the last placed finisher who crossed the line around 0600hrs Monday morning, taking just under three days for the 320nm course.

Read Stu MacKinven's report from aboard TeamVodafoneSailing in this newsletter.

In the Vendee Globe, the attrition rate continues with the 20 boat fleet cut to 13 after Vicente Riou aboard PRB collided with a metal horbour buoy. Riou hit the buoy two days ago, but only today made the decision that it could not be repaired at sea, and it is clearly not seamanlike to head into the Southern Ocean with that type of damage.

The loss of so many entries, so early in the race, will call into question the safety issues surrounding singlehanded sailing, and the fact that to sleep there must, by definition, be no-one on watch. However the Vendee Globe is widely reckoned to be the toughest race of any sport - and that is its challenge and what makes a win so prestigious.

In Sydney two New Zealand crews have contested the final of the Harken International Youth Match Racing Championship. Dave Hazard from RNZYS has become just the fourth skipper to win back to back titles. He contested the final against former Optimist World Champion, Chris Steele, also from the RNZYS Lion Foundation Youth Program. It is great to see this program, which has been running for 20 years continuing to produce increasing numbers of top sailors.

On Friday night at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron was the venue for the Sailor of the Year award ceremony. Given New Zealand's Olympic success, it was not surprising to see the Olympic classes dominating the major awards, with Gold Medalists Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie taking the overall award, and their coach, Nathan Handley winning the Coach/Official of the Year. We have a report and images, on the evening, in this edition of Sail-World.com's newsletter.

More from the Vestas Sailrocket team, not content with upping the World Sailing Speed Record by 5kts, the British team is focused on taking the record over the magic 60kt barrier, and who knows there the top end may lie.

We have a further report from the team from their base in Walvis Bay, South Africa.

At Sail-World we get numerous reports from Maritime New Zealand on the subject of EPIRBs - particularly the need to carry a person one.

Westpac helicopter parked close to Luna Rossa, November 19, 2012 Westhaven on an EPIRB hunt

In this edition of Sail-World we carry a couple of stories on how EPIRBs have definitely saved lives. However spare the authorities a thought the other night when the Westpac helicopter was dispatched to try and find the source of an EPIRB that was emitting a signal from the Pier 21/Orams Marine area - it was like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack - or was that boatstack?

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